LOCAL

LOCAL
Group seeks participantsin a tour of Finland
ASHTABULA -- Members of the Finnish-American Heritage Association of Ashtabula are seeking people to join them on a group tour of Finland from July 26 through Aug. 10.
Highlights of the trip will include stops in Helsinki and Tampere, three days in Vaasa, a visit to the Karelian countryside and a day in Lapland's Rovaniemi, known as the home of Santa Claus.
The fully-escorted package includes airfare from Toronto, 14 nights in first class hotels, a private motor coach and most meals.
Cost per person varies from $2,719 to $3,094. For more information, contact Linda Riddell at (440) 964-2519.
REGION
Photography exhibitopens in Cleveland
Early American photographs of great charm and surprising variety are on view in a new exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art -- "The Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro Collection of American Photography." Taken between 1850 and 1911, an era in which the American daguerreotype established itself as a major cultural accomplishment, the images range from period portraiture to western landscapes. A highlight of the show, which closes Sept.10, is a large oval medallion containing nine photographic views of the same woman.
There also are photographs taken by the great Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins.
Recently, the museum opened an ambitious show called simply "The History of Japanese Photography." On view through July 20, it presents 150 pictures taken by 60 Japanese photographers before and after World War II. A companion exhibition, "Points of Light: Sata Tokihiro Photographs," up through July 2, contains 20 extraordinary images in which the artist enhances his scenes by making pattern movements with a penlight during timed exposures.
The museum is at 11150 East Blvd. For more information, call (216) 421-7350 or visit www.clevelandart.org on the Web.
Pa. honors its heritage with 'Miles of Mules'
ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Mules helped build the Pennsylvania economy by pulling countless barges of coal on the Delaware and Lehigh canals. Now, officials at the Delaware & amp; Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Commission want to remind people of the mule's important work.
The way they've chosen to do it is a public art project called "Miles of Mules."
Life-sized mule statues were given to 150 people to decorate. One artist dressed his mule like Elvis, complete with sideburns, and others have been adorned with bottle caps, painted daisies -- you name it.
"The idea is to make art more accessible and give it a playful spin," says Elisabeth Flynn of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., one of the commission's Miles of Mules partners.
Switzerland is often credited with the world's first public art display involving animal figures, an 800-cow project in Zurich in 1998. A year later Chicago followed with "Cows on Parade" -- said to have generated $200 million in tourism revenues --and New York followed suit with cows in 2000. New Mexico had a "Trail of Painted Ponies" and Philadelphia's Main Line displayed decorated dogs.
MISC.
Hotel has really goneto the dogs (and cats)
Travelers no longer have to gamble on leaving Fido at home when visiting Las Vegas. A partnership between Vegas.com and America Dog and Cat Hotel allows for Internet bookings for pet suites. Travelers can visit www.vegas.com, book a room at a city resort, and then place an online reservation for their pet. Pets can be dropped off at the hotel or be picked up at the airport or resort.
The 7,500-square-foot facility offers private pet suites with color television, a free-range area for day care, overnight stays, an enclosed private yard, super-soft beds and loving care. Soothing jazz and doggie videos, such as 101 Dalmatians and Lassie are played.
Nightly rates begin at $29 for cats. For more information, call (800) 851-1703 or visit the Web site.
Consumer Reports surveyreveals top parks
Consumer Reports, usually the source for information on toasters or Toyotas, tackles the theme park in its June issue. Nearly 2,500 readers responded to a survey on the best parks in the nation. The conclusion: Disney rules -- with a few exceptions.
The three top-rated parks: Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios and Magic Kingdom -- are all located in Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The next two are also Orlando-area attractions: Sea World and Universal's Islands of Adventure.
They're followed by Sea World (San Diego), Disney's Animal Kingdom (Lake Buena Vista, Fla.), Disneyland (Anaheim, Calif.), Cedar Point (Sandusky), Busch Gardens (Tampa Bay, Fla.), Universal Studios (Orlando), Knotts Berry Farm (Buena Park, Calif.), Universal Studios Hollywood (Universal City, Calif.), and Disney's California Adventure (Anaheim, Calif.)
Ohio-born painter shows works in Los Angeles
At LA Louver Gallery in Venice, Calif., is "R.B. Kitaj -- Los Angeles Pictures."
Famed for his bright colors and fanciful imagination, Kitaj was born in Cleveland, traveled the world in the merchant marine and studied in England, where he lived and worked for 40 years before settling in Los Angeles in 1997.
The paintings have to do with everything from literature to spiritual life, but focus on his love for his late wife, artist Sandra Fisher.
The show closes July 5. For more information, call (310) 822-4955.
Web sites offer dataon traveling USA
For the three out of four vacationers who plan to see America this summer, travel advice is no further away than the home computer. Three different Web sites are designed to help travelers find their way around the nation.
Recently, SeeAmerica.org launched a feature called See America's Byways, created by the Travel Industry Association and the U.S. Department of Transportation. You click on the state, then the town you want to visit and get a packet of maps, advice on what to see and links to state tourism sites. The Web site covers 20 All American Roads and 75 National Scenic Byways.
The Automobile Association of America offers 26 driving trips, available only to members on www.aaa.com, while vacationers who don't know exactly where they want to go can find close-to-home vacation spots by visiting PlacesToStay.com. Under Vacation Ideas, click on Quick Getaways then select the place you're starting from. Up pops a map showing you what's within 50, 100, 150 and 200 miles.
Frank's photos captureBritish class system
See London and Wales in a classic period of British transformation through the eyes and lens of one of the 20th century's greatest photographers in "Robert Frank: London/Wales," an exhibition at Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art.
The 90 black and white images pursue the contrasts of the dreadfully rigid and hurtful British class system by focusing on the world of money -- "London Bankers" and similar pictures -- and the world of work, as represented by Welsh coal miners.
Frank, inspired by the coal-mining movie "How Green Was My Valley," took these photographs between 1951 and 1953, a time when England -- like much of Europe after World War II -- was in an abyss of hardship and want.
Born in Switzerland, Frank immigrated to New York in 1947, just in time for the beginnings of the Beat culture. Beat chronicler Jack Kerouac called him "the poet of the camera" for his highly realistic and deeply emotional pictures. Frank is best known for his American work, especially his New York pictures.
The Frank show closes July 14. For more information, call (202) 639-1700 or visit www.corcoran.org on the Web.
London museum exhibitfeatures Art Deco items
The decades before World War II gave us something far more delightful than Prohibition, the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism. They brought forth Art Deco, one of the most popular, pervasive and aesthetically pleasing artistic and decorative styles ever to grace a civilization.
London's Victoria and Albert Museum recently opened a lavish exhibition exploring this most "modern" of movements in spectacular fashion, displaying fully 300 examples of the paintings, sculpture, architecture, furniture, textiles, glass products, metalwork, jewelry, graphic art, fashion styles, film and photography it inspired.
Among the pleasures of "Art Deco 1910-1939" are works by Fernand Leger and Constantin Brancusi and fashions of Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaperelli.
Curiously, the movement in its own time was known as "Jazz Moderne," "Streamline Moderne" or "Moderne." The term "Art Deco" came from the title of a 1925 Paris exhibition dedicated to the movement, and it was not applied to the entire epoch until 1966.
The V & amp;A also organized the "Art Nouveau" exhibition two years ago, devoted to the art movement that immediately preceded "Art Deco."
The show closes July 20.
For more information, visit www.vam.ac.uk on the Web.
Combined dispatches